Research Partners

We are co-investigators with researchers at these institutions, along with the lead investigator, Andrew Paterson at the University of Georgia, in a five-year USAID-funded project (starting in 2013) to use Sorghum halepense for the improvement of grain/forage sorghum in Africa, including improvement of ratooning and perenniality.

www.arc.agric.za

Since 2018, the Axfoundation and researcher Anna Westerbergh at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have been conducting domestication and plant breeding on Kernza® perennial grain and perennial barley, at the foundation's Torsåker Farm.

We collaborate with Dr. Alexey Morgunov, the CIMMYT program director, who is testing perennial wheat for productivity and longevity in Turkey’s local ecosystem.

www.cimmyt.org/

Dr. Matthew Ryan leads research regarding the agroecology of The Land Institute’s Kernza® perennial grain in New York state. His research also involves collaboration with farmers, millers, bakers, and other end-users of the grain.

www.cornell.edu/

Dr. Laura Gazza and colleagues are working in communication with The Land Institute on quality traits such as protein, gluten intolerance, and micronutrition of perennial wheat.

www.crea.gov.it/

Professor Qing-Fu Chen leads a group of buckwheat breeders. One of their projects is working on the development of perennial buckwheat species through wide hybridization.

We are co-investigators with researchers at these institutions, along with the lead investigator, Andrew Paterson at the University of Georgia, in a five-year USAID-funded project to use Sorghum halepense for the improvement of grain/forage sorghum in Africa, including improvement of ratooning and perenniality.

www.icrisat.org/

We are co-investigators with researchers at these institutions, along with the lead investigator, Andrew Paterson at the University of Georgia, in a five-year USAID-funded project  to use Sorghum halepense for the improvement of grain/forage sorghum in Africa, including improvement of ratooning and perenniality.

www.icrisat.org/

We are co-investigators with researchers at these institutions, along with the lead investigator, Andrew Paterson at the University of Georgia, in a five-year USAID-funded project  to use Sorghum halepense for the improvement of grain/forage sorghum in Africa, including improvement of ratooning and perenniality.

Dr. Luis Diaz-Garcia, based in Aguascalientes, collaborates with The Land Institute to develop and implement image-based phenotyping methods and genomic-assisted breeding strategies in our breeding programs.

https://www.gob.mx/inifap

We are co-investigators with researchers at these institutions, along with the lead investigator, Andrew Paterson at the University of Georgia, in a five-year USAID-funded project (starting in 2013) to use Sorghum halepense for the improvement of grain/forage sorghum in Africa, including improvement of ratooning and perenniality.

www.ju.edu.et/

Kansas State currently hosts two post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory to study intermediate wheatgrass genetics and genomics. They also support high-throughput, automated, geo-referenced data collection methods for perennial grain breeding. Both positions are funded by the Perennial Agriculture Project in conjunction with the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute.

www.k-state.edu/

Dr. Jamie Larsen is breeding perennial cereal rye and wheat. He is also working on the molecular genetics of perenniality, disease resistance, cold tolerance and agronomy in wheatgrass and perennial wheat. We exchange data and germplasm with Dr. Larsen’s lab.

Professor Lennart Olsson, founder of the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), and Dr. Wim Carton actively promote social and natural science research on Natural Systems Agriculture with perennial grains in Sweden and Sub-Saharan Africa. They partner with The Land Institute on numerous research proposals in Europe and in East Africa.

www.lunduniversity.lu.se/

Founded and led by Dr. Omar Tesdell, the research group Makaneyyat seeks to apply agroecology to bring about positive social-ecological change at the landscape scale in Palestine. TLI’s legumes and silphium breeders and Ecosphere Studies program are assisting the Makaneyyat team in their exploration of plant species that could be developed as new perennial grain or companion crops in the region.

https://www.makaneyyat.org/en/home/

This group of collaborators is field testing The Land Institute’s perennial sorghum in the tropics, with the intention of initiating a breeding program to develop perennial sorghum adapted to East African conditions.

David Des Marais and the Des Marais Lab seek to integrate plant ecology, evolution and
physiology with genomics and agriculture. They are beginning to explore the impact of
perenniality on plant responses to environmental stress. They will be making use of the intermediate wheatgrass genome and annual versus perennial model species to understand the physiological and genetic differences between perennial and annual life histories.

We collaborate with Dr. Maria von Korff and one of her post-doctoral fellows, who are conducting whole-genome gene expression analyses in order to find the essential genes that influence the longevity of perennial wheat. This institute is highly recognized for the study of perenniality in model plant species and is seeking to transfer knowledge and technologies into staple crops.

www.mpipz.mpg.de/en

Plant Physiologists Drs. Alejandra Vilela and Damian Ravetta are studying the ecophysiological changes in silphium during the process of selecting for increased yield at The Land Institute. They travel to Kansas to work directly with Dr. David Van Tassel, who has also spent time developing experiments in Argentina. This work is funded in part by The Land Institute.

www.mef.org.ar/en/

Dr. Metin Tuna and his colleagues are evaluating perennial wheat lines for productivity and longevity. His group is interested in the cytogenetic characterization of wheatgrasses and wheat/ wheatgrass hybrids. Their research will provide important context for The Land Institute’s perennial wheat breeding program

www.nku.edu.tr/

Richard Hayes, Matt Newell, and colleagues are working to breed perennial wheat hybrids, as well as trial legume-wheat and wheatgrass intercrops. We exchange data and germplasm with the department.

www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/

Dr. Massimo Iorizzo’s group will be characterizing and studying the phytoactive compounds (beneficial and non-beneficial) present in the seeds of multiple perennial grain legume candidate species.

https://plantsforhumanhealth.ncsu.edu/

Professor Zhonghua Wang’s group is testing perennial wheat for productivity in the Loess Plateau, a region with some of the most severe soil erosion in the world. His group is also studying the impact of wheat vernalization genes on perenniality. This work is funded by The Land Institute

nwsuaf.edu.cn/

Dr. Steve Culman coordinates a multi-regional study on how simulated grazing at different seasons though biomass clipping influence intermediate wheatgrass grain production and total biomass productivity. Other participating institutions include The Land Institute, Colorado State, Cornell, USDA-ARS-Beltsville, University of Manitoba, Iowa State, Michigan State, University of Wisconsin, and University of Minnesota. Dr. Culman’s work is funded in part by The Land Institute.

www.osu.edu/

Professor Liuling Yan and his post-doctoral fellow are investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying regrowth habit in perennial wheat. Nearly all the current perennial wheat lines show spring-type regrowth, which renders plants less perennial under stressful conditions. This work is funded by the Perennial Agriculture Project in conjunction with the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute.

go.okstate.edu/

The Perennial Agriculture Project Field Station came to life in 2016. Located on the historic Gorrill Farmstead in Lawrence, Kansas, it is home to a significant expansion of ecological intensification research underwritten by the Perennial Agriculture Project, which is a project of the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute.  Ecological intensification focuses on identifying and incorporating ecological processes that can take the place of inputs like fertilizers or pesticides.  KU ecology faculty members Jim Bever and Peggy Schultz live on-site and serve as research coordinators. Laura Kemp, former Land Institute ecology technician in Salina has taken on the new role of Field Station manager.  The Gorrill Farm Research Station is being used by three post-doc research fellows from the University of Kansas, conducting experiments at this site. A fully-equipped field station laboratory came into service in 2017.  Laura Kemp can be reached at kemp@landinstitute.org.

The project aims at testing the value of Kernza® intermediate wheatgrass and few other perennial grains as multipurpose crops.

All sites are experimenting Kernza® as sole crop and intercropped with white clover in comparison to annual wheat. Some fields also include alfalfa intercropping treatment.

Dr. Florian Celette and Dr Christophe David (Executive Dean) of ISARA, Olivier Duchene (PhD student at ISARA), and Professor Matthew Ryan from Cornell University.

For more information on the project, see https://www.researchgate.net/project/Grow-perennial-crops-for-grain-and-forage-production-while-providing-ecosystems-services, or contact Olivier Duchene at olduchene@isara.fr.

Research Geneticist Dr. Brent Hulke and Research Entomologist Jarrad Prasifka are performing field and greenhouse research to investigate the insect pests, pollination biology, and basis of heterosis in silphium. We exchange data and germplasm with Dr. Hulke’s lab.

In collaboration with The Land Institute and the Missouri Botanical Garden, Dr. Allison Miller oversees the Global Inventory Project. Using databases supported by botanical gardens worldwide, Dr. Miller’s group is identifying wild herbaceous perennial species in the legume, grass, and sunflower families that may be of interest for new perennial crop domestication breeding programs. This work is funded in part by the Perennial Agriculture Project in conjunction with the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute.

www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/

www.slu.edu/

Sweden’s SITES program (Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science) maintains nine research stations dedicated to long-term ecological research. Dr. Linda-Maria D. Mårtensson, associate professor in the Biosystems and Technology Department is the principal investigator working with Kernza in the SITES Agroecological Field Experiment. This experiment consists of four replicated cropping systems, including Land Institute perennial intermediate wheatgrass (which produces Kernza® grain) grown alone and intercropped with alfalfa.

www.slu.se/

Dr. Anna Westerbergh is a plant breeder who is working to perennialize barley by crossing annual barley with wild barley relatives (e.g., Hordeum bulbosum). Anna is also evaluating perennial wheat and intermediate wheatgrass germplasm from The Land Institute for high latitude (~60°) breeding.

www.slu.se/

Nir Sade has just accepted a position in Israel and is finishing a postdoctoral position at UC
Davis. His research will focus on methods to improve agricultural sustainability under climate change scenarios. He has begun work with Kernza and other perennial grains, and, if funding allows, intends to continue to work with these new crops. He hopes to gain understanding about the differential response of annual and perennial plants to drought stress and hopes that perennial grains might be useful as dual-purpose crops in his country.

Dr. Pablo Speranza, who studies the population genetics of domestication in perennial forages, is evaluating the ability of silphium to survive and flower in Uruguay. Valentin Picasso (see Univeristy of Wisconsin, Madison) is also a member of the Agronomy Faculty.

www.universidad.edu.uy/

Dr. Kate Scow is currently advising a graduate student, Kalyn Diederich, who is studying the potential adaptability of Kernza to a Mediterranean environment. They will be looking at the potential for Kernza to sequester carbon, and the impact of a perennial versus annual grain soil microbial
community composition and biomass.
http://scowlab.lawr.ucdavis.edu/

Dr. Nolan Kane will be directing a graduate or post-doctoral student to begin characterizing the genome of silphium. This program will be funded by the Perennial Agriculture Project in conjunction with the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute.

www.colorado.edu/

Dr. Kristian Thorup-Kristensen oversees the DeepFrontier root ecology research project, in which deep-rooted agricultural species are studied in aboveground root towers and with belowground mini-rhizotrons. Intermediate wheatgrass and silphium from The Land Institute are among the species being evaluated.

www.ku.dk

Since 2009, we have worked with Dr. Andrew Paterson, head of the Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, on mapping perenniality and other traits in tetraploid sorghum populations.

www.uga.edu/

Drs. Jim Bever, Peggy Shultz, and Ben Sikes are conducting soil ecology work on perennial polycultures and native grasslands. Dr. Nate Brunsell is researching carbon and hydrological dynamics in perennial crops. Bever and Shultz are the research coordinators for the Perennial Agriculture Project (PAP) research facility outside of Lawrence, Kansas, near Lecompton. The PAP is a joint project between The Land Institute and the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation.

www.ku.edu/

Dr. Doug Cattani’s position explicitly centers on the development of perennial grain crops and polyculture cropping systems. He is breeding Kernza® and Maximilian sunflower varieties for Manitoba using germplasm developed at The Land Institute.

umanitoba.ca/

The Land Institute partners with the Forever Green Initiative to develop new perennial crops for the Upper Midwest. This extensive research involves genetic, breeding, agroecology, and food science studies with Kernza®, silphium, and other potential new crops. More than 10 PhD level researchers are involved in the work, along with several graduate students. Many of these individuals are funded by the Perennial Agriculture Project, a joint project of the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation and The Land Institute. Other funding comes from the University of Minnesota, Minnesota Legislature, Minnesota Legacy Water Quality Initiative, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and General Mills

twin-cities.umn.edu/

www.forevergreen.umn.edu

Professor Heather Darby is coordinating on-farm trials with silphium.

www.uvm.edu/

Valentin Picasso is an agroecologist in the Agronomy Department of the University of Wisconsin. Kernza research is central to his work in sustainable agriculture and grazing systems in the Midwest United States. Valentin oversees legume-Kernza intercrop plots both at U. Wisconsin experiment stations and on several farms. He is involved in Kernza grazing tolerance research, and he is also supervising graduate work evaluating weed establishment and competition in
Kernza fields. He also looks at legume intercropping  with silphium.

www.wisc.edu/

Dr. Steve Larson, a USDA-ARS grass geneticist, collaborates with The Land Institute scientists to study the genetics of perennial grasses that are being developed into grain crops.

www.usu.edu/

Dr. Stephen Jones and his PhD students are breeding and evaluating perennial wheat as dual purpose grain and forage crops.

wsu.edu/

Dr. Fengyi Hu’s lab has successfully bred perennial rice hybrids for paddy cultivation and continues to work on developing hybrids adapted to upland conditions. The Land Institute helps fund this work, and our scientists serve as advisors to this project.

www.ynu.edu.cn/